Greek and barbarick systems. Whatever influences, impulsions, or inclinations there be from the lights above, it were a piece of wisdom to make one of those wise men* who overrule their stars, and with their own militia contend with the host of heaven. Unto which attempt there want not auxiliaries from the whole strength of morality, supplies from Christian ethicks, influences also and illuminations from above, more powerful than the lights of heaven. VIII. Confound not the distinctions of thy life which nature hath divided; that is, youth, adolescence, manhood, and old age; nor in these divided periods, wherein thou art in a manner four, conceive thyself but one. Let every division be happy in its proper virtues, nor one vice run through all. Let each distinction have its salutary transition, and critically deliver thee from the imperfections of the former; so ordering the whole, that prudence and virtue may have the largest section. Do as a child but when thou art a child, and ride not on a reed at twenty. He who hath not taken leave of the follies of his youth, and in his maturer state scarce got out of that division, disproportionately * Sapiens dominabitur astris. divideth his days, crowds up the latter part of his life, and leaves too narrow a corner for the age of wisdom, and so hath room to be a man scarce longer than he hath been a youth. Rather than to make this confusion, anticipate the virtues of age, and live long without the infirmities of it. So may'st thou count up thy days as some do Adam's,* that is by anticipation; so may'st thou be coetaneous unto thy elders, and a father unto thy contemporaries. IX. While others are curious in the choice of good air, and chiefly solicitous for healthful habitations, study thou conversation, and be critical in thy consortion. The aspects, conjunctions, and configurations of the stars, which mutually diversify, intend, or qualify their influences, are but the varieties of their nearer or farther conversation with one another, and like the consortion of men, whereby they become better or worse, and even exchange their natures. Since men live by examples, and will be imitating something, order thy imitation to thy improvement, not thy ruin. Look * Adam, thought to be created in the state of man, about thirty years old. not for roses in Attalus his garden,* or wholesome flowers in a venemous plantation. And since there is scarce any one bad, but some others are the worse for him, tempt not contagion by proximity, and hazard not thyself in the shadow of corruption. He who hath not early suffered this shipwreck, and in his younger days escaped this Charybdis, may make a happy voyage, and not come in with black sails into the port. Self-conversation, or to be alone, is better than such consortion. Some schoolmen tell us, that he is properly alone, with whom in the same place there is no other of the same species. Nabuchodonozor was alone, though among the beasts of the field; and a wise man may be tolerably said to be alone, though with a rabble of people little better than beasts about him. Unthinking heads, who have not learned to be alone, are in a prison to themselves, if they be not also with others; whereas, on the contrary, they whose thoughts are in a fair, and hurry within, are sometimes fain to retire into company, to be out of the crowd of themselves. He who must needs have company, must needs have sometimes bad com * Attalus made a garden which contained only venemous plants. pany. Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself, nor be only content, but delight to be alone and single with Omnipresency. He who is thus prepared, the day is not uneasy nor the night black unto him. Darkness may bound his eyes, not his imagination. In his bed he may lie, like Pompey and his sons,* in all quarters of the earth; may speculate the universe, and enjoy the whole world in the hermitage of himself. Thus the old ascetick Christians found a paradise in a desert, and with little converse on earth held a conversation in heaven; thus they astronomized in caves, and though they beheld not the stars, had the glory of heaven before them. X. Let the characters of good things stand indelibly in thy mind, and thy thoughts be active on them. Trust not too much unto suggestions from reminiscential amulets, or artificial memorandums. Let the mortifying Janus of Covarrubias be in thy daily thoughts, not only on thy hand and signets. Rely not alone upon silent and dumb * Pompeios Juvenes Asia atque Europa, sed ipsum terra tegit Libyes. + Don Sebastian de Covarrubias, writ three centuries of moral emblems in Spanish. In the 88th of the second century he sets down two faces averse, and conjoined Janus-like; the one a remembrances. Behold not deaths'-heads till thou dost not see them, nor look upon mortifying objects till thou overlookest them. Forget not how assuefaction unto any thing minorates the passion from it, how constant objects lose their hints, and steal an inadvertisement upon us. There is no excuse to forget what every thing prompts unto us. To thoughtful observators, the whole world is a phylactery, and every thing we see an item of the wisdom, power, or goodness of God. Happy are they who verify their amulets, and make their phylacteries speak in their lives and actions. To run on in despight of the revulsions and pull-backs of such remoras, aggravates our transgressions. When deaths'-heads on our hands have no influence upon our heads, and fleshless cadavers abate not the exorbitances of the flesh; when crucifixes upon men's hearts suppress not their bad commotions, and his image who was murdered for us withholds not from blood and murder; phylacteries prove but formalities, and their despised hints sharpen our condemnations. gallant beautiful face, the other a death's-head face, with this motto out of Ovid's Metamorphosis, Quid fuerim, quid simque, vide. |